


Graveyard

by janeaustenfangirl



Series: October Writing Challenge 2020 [7]
Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27465607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janeaustenfangirl/pseuds/janeaustenfangirl
Summary: “And your very flesh shall be a great poem.” ~ Walt Whitman
Relationships: Count Dracula/Abraham Van Helsing
Series: October Writing Challenge 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949926
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Graveyard

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 8: Graveyard  
> The setting is Lucy's crypt, on September 30th.

Under normal circumstances, he would have enjoyed the blood curdling screams echoing through the night. Especially since Lucy had such a lovely scream -- high, clean, and pure, but not shrill. Innocence personified. Reminded him of a kitten being tortured. 

He wasn’t saddened, though, not really. He had liked Lucy, sure, but he hadn’t loved her. Hadn’t cared for her. 

The first wave of screaming stopped. The sound of wood hitting wood rang out, and the screams started again. He stared at the crypt for a moment, before his curiosity got the better of him. It took him so little effort to slither through the cracks between the stones, until he was standing in the crypt, completely invisible to the human eye. He blended in with the shadows, perfectly one with the darkness. But wasn’t he always? 

He found a lovely little perch amongst the rafters, and looked down on the group of men huddled around their Undead victim. 

He locked eyes with Lucy for a moment, and he wondered if she could see him. But then her eyes rolled back in her head, and he didn’t care anymore. 

As he stared at the still-screaming Lucy, at the wooden stake in the young man's hand, he couldn’t say why he had ever turned her in the first place. For some sense of companionship in England, maybe. To spite the men who had dared try to stop him, perhaps. 

And she had been lovely, once. But now with her teeth gnashing and her mouth foaming with bloody froth, she had lost some of her appeal. 

He didn’t think it mattered now. There was no saving her, anyways. She had already been struck with a stake made of yew wood. Even if he was able to fight off her attackers, she’d be in bad shape. He’d have to nurse her back to health, and that would take weeks, months, even. And he didn’t have weeks, months even. His plans were far too time-sensitive, and far too important. (Vampires were not, contrary to popular belief, completely invincible. And they did not, contrary to popular belief, have eons.) 

So, he let her die. Again. And it was harsh, he knew, and not necessarily fair, but he didn’t have much of a choice. 

Not to mention the fact that if he _were_ to intervene somehow, he’d be put directly in the sights of the men who were killing her, and he rather hoped they didn’t know who he was. That way he’d have the advantage over Professor Van Helsing, Dr Seward, Lord Godalming, and Mr Morris. If they really were the potential foes he thought they were, that edge could prove invaluable. 

In short, he reasoned, Lucy simply wasn’t worth it to him. 

The hammer hit the stake in Lucy’s chest for the third time. A smattering of blood hit Holmwood and Van Helsing in the face. 

It shone deliciously, despite the little amount of light in the crypt. The smell of it hit him right in the face -- rich, sweet -- the blood of a child, maybe eight -- yet acidic, fetid -- his own blood, still in her veins. Usually after a few weeks, fledglings shed the blood of the one who turned them, but she’d never un-live that long. 

Her writhing stopped. Her face grew placid. She almost looked as if she were sleeping -- well, she would have, had it not been for the stake protruding from her chest, or the drying bloody-foam around her mouth. 

Holmwood fell back, and was caught by his companions. Van Helsng murmured something that he didn’t care enough to try to hear, in a German accent that almost sounded put-on. 

The men talked, in hushed voices, almost as if they knew primally that he was there, watching them. And then Mr Morris, and Lord Godalming left the crypt, leaving behind only Seward and Van Helsing. 

His eyes fell on Abraham Van Helsing. He had been able to learn something of him -- of all of them -- during Lucy’s illness. Actually, Renfield had been a surprisingly good source of information on just about all of them, except Quincey Morris, whose name he had never even heard before, but especially on Van Helsing. 

A forerunner in his field, who revolutionized medicine with his discovery that brain matter is ever-growing throughout a person's life. (He wondered if brain matter continued growing after someone's death. He’d have to ask Van Helsing that, later, if he ever got the chance.)

He barely paid attention as the two men sawed the wooden stake still sticking out of her chest in half, leaving part of it still in her chest. Or as the two men chopped off her head. Or as the men shoved garlic in her mouth. 

His mind was far too busy wandering elsewhere, thinking of all the ways in which Van Helsing was a truly formidable enemy. 

And he was truly refreshed to have a formidable enemy. It had been so long since he had engaged in a battle of the wits, he had almost started to get bored. As Van Helsing prattled off with some prayer, he wondered if the man could fight, or if their battle was to be a purely intellectual one. Either way, exhilarating. 

More intoxicating than the richest of blood. 

The men closed the coffin on Lucy’s now truly-dead and desecrated body, barely able to look each other in the eye. He watched as they walked out of the crypt, then as the crypt door closed behind them. 

He slithered down from his perch in the rafters, until his solid feet hit solid ground. There was some blood on the ground around Lucy’s coffin, he noted. A bit sloppy, to be sure, but nothing that would take away from the thrill of having an enemy. 

He walked in the places Van Helsing had walked, put his feet down where Van Helsing had. He wanted to get in his head, to understand the man. 

As he brushed his long fingers against the top of Lucy’s coffin, he did feel a pang of remorse for losing the dear girl. It had partially been his fault, afterall. 

Then a thought crossed his mind. 

Maybe in losing Lucy, his most recent bride, he had found an even better one. 

**Author's Note:**

> So you might be thinking: "but wait, what about prompt 7?" well, it's a drawing, and I posted it on my Tumblr, but I just can't figure out how to post it on here, but once I do I'll put it here. If you want to see it on my Tumblr, you can find it here: https://vanhelsingenthusiast.tumblr.com/image/631804299827101696.  
> You're probably also mad because this is an entire month late. My bad.


End file.
